Is Progress 8 Relevant in 2022?

Ok, let’s start with a confession. I used to be a tax inspector. It gave me a love of data! No, really, my English degree was a natural fit. I would ask, ‘what is the story these accounts and records are telling me?’ Then I would retell that story to the business owner and their accountant. They would tell me a very different story. Trust me, this is going to be very relevant to data in schools.

Now, tax inspectors avoid the word ‘fraud’, as that attracts all sorts of penalties and invites a protracted defense and prosecution. Instead you would say to the tax swindler in front of you, “given the evidence, what would the average man on the street believe?”

In my four years no one ever tried to go to court, where the man in the street would judge them. They always negotiated a settlement. The data always told a more plausible story.

In schools it is rather different. Leaders and teachers go to extraordinary lengths to ‘yes, but, no but’ their data. They take one legitimate weakness, and then claim the rest of the data is consequently a pack of cards, piled on a moveable rug, barely resting on a foundation of sand, and look, a Covid storm is blowing it all to hell in a bucket with more than one hole, dear lies and statistics.

I understand that this is a fear of accountability, of the potential unfairness of external judgement, of Ofsted.

But the solution is to use Progress 8 data yourself, to judge your own school, your own department, your own class. It is much more robust and meaningful than you might think.

For example: you have a class who you decide should only do English language. They only have two options in the Open Bucket, and no English literature to fill that bucket. So, you imagine Progress 8 will be severely hampered for the whole school. You are going to have to teach them both subjects.

But, not so. You run some maths and find that the whole school Progress 8 will only be reduced by about -0.03. You can live with that.

(Incidentally, I recommend teaching that class literature and not language. Then entering the students for both - language can be taught in one lesson every 3 weeks, and they will be more literate and better writers as a result of studying literature).

Now, imagine that your school isn’t full of middle class students who all had supportive, educated parents and space and resources to study during the pandemic. You will expect a negative Progress 8 this year, or at best a 0.00.

That’s the story in one of the schools I support. But now, let’s look at Progress 8 by attendance. Then we find a totally different picture. Students with 95% + attendance have a Progress 8 of +0.8.

That now tells the story of your curriculum. When students attend, your curriculum adds significant value.

The problem is the rest of the year group has an average attendance below 88%, and they average a strong negative Progress 8, hence the zero overall.

Now, without looking for the story behind the data, you would look at the average Progress 8, then at your significantly below average cohort, and feel a bit deflated. Defensive. Prone to see the flaws in Progress 8. The unfairness of being compared to other schools with advantaged or even averagely advantaged students. Meanwhile, because the data worries you, the comparisons worry you, you redouble your efforts to close the DA gap, the SEND gap, the gender gap, improve the curriculum, reduce the variation between subjects and consistency of teaching and learning in the classroom.

You don’t even think to look at the difference in Progress 8 by attendance, because Ofsted don’t, and the performance tables don’t. Because you don’t ask yourself, ‘what is the story?’

And here’s the thing. None of those worries are the main problem. None of that is going to make a difference. Because your curriculum and your teaching and learning is doing better than fine when students turn up to school.

It means instead that at least 80% of your effort needs to go to raising attendance.

If you want to be brilliant English teacher, you’ll like The Full English

If you want to find out how to get great progress from students in any subject, you’ll like The Slightly Awesome Teacher

If you want to pass Ofsted with flying colours, you’ll like The Unofficial Ofsted Survival Guide

If you want a quick guide to How to Improve Your School, click here